Reviewed: November 6, 2005
Reviewed by: Tyler Whitney
Publisher
2K Games
Developer
Visual Concepts
Released: September 26, 2005
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-2
ESRB: Everyone
9
8
7
9
8.9
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Well, another year, another NBA 2K6 title…but something is missing…. right? Well, gentle reader- you are correct! The monolithic entity known as Electronic Arts bought out the rights to ESPN, at least in relation to videogames. So no more ESPN NFL/NBA, etc. games for a good while. And hey, who can blame them for cracking down on their competition? $20 titles that outperformed Madden and other EA products really hurt their sales. I myself still play both the major 2K Sports titles from a year ago, and will continue to do for some time to come.
But 2K Sports and Visual Concepts marched on, kept their heads up, and delivered another fantastic NBA game, sans the ESPN affiliation, and they still managed to outperform EA's NBA offering for this year. What this year's title lacks in presentation is more than made up for with the gameplay.
NBA 2K6 is the anti-thesis of EA’s NBA Live series, further embracing the growing rivalry. This is a sim through and through, not NBA Jam-lite. (Or NBA Street for the young folks.) You have to play D, choose your plays, set up picks, and work, work, work for that elusive open shot. Now I may sound like you have to be John Wooden to grasp this title, but that’s far from the truth. Don’t be intimidated with a little dose of realism. Sorry you can’t take off from the free-throw line and throw down over 3 seven footers.
Now, the meat ‘n potatoes of the game is the “Association”, or Dynasty/Franchise mode where you can lead your team to success over many years. You can focus in on specific player skills, team practices, free agents, trades and so on. You can really tweak your players based off these drills too, especially guys like Shaq who builds a house (hint: "brick”) every time he steps to the line. Well, make him freaking concentrate on his free throws, and he just might break even on the year. The menus are slick and easy to navigate, and everything feels pretty familiar after 5 plus years of 2K sports action.
Added to this mode, is the much-hyped 24/7 experience. Here you take your baller, working on your skills as you travel across the country battling the best the NBA has to offer, and the occasional celebrity. You can even craft your own sneakers, giving you bonuses in speed or jumping as you see fit. Too bad they didn’t include the old school “Pump Pump-JUMP” shoes of the early 90’s, those were da bomb-literally. If you pumped too much, you could lose a leg.
Control wise, Visual Concepts added a new Dual Player Control system, whereby you can do some nifty give and goes, screens to back-picks, and so forth. Too bad Stockton and Malone retired, this system just screams for their vaunted pick and roll ownage. This cuts down on the running those complex 5 man iso-motion-triangle-hail mary plays too. Just grab your two best players, and prepare to dominate.
The players themselves feel stable, and not like a figure skater on slippery ice. (*cough NBA 06) Your big men will ponder around, looking for position in the post and low block, while your lithe guards will slash and penetrate for an easy score. On defense, I always like to sit back with my massive center or power forward, preferably a shot blocker. On a good day, you should hear me yell, “Get that outa my kitchen!” numerous times. While on offense, I like to dribble drive with a shooter guard like T-Mac or Iverson, and light up the D with an array of threes, mid-ranged daggers and the always resounding funktified dunk.
Another set of additions are the strip system and the shot stick. The former sounds like a gimme in stealing a ball or pass. But in reality, it’s a bit tough to get your hands in there just right, and the animation can take you out of position sometimes. You will also be whistled for fouls if you abuse it too much. The shot stick allows you to have a bit more choice of attack, but really, it’s pretty much a toss up. They should have implemented a simplified button press instead of jiggling the stick around hoping for something great to happen. Frankly, it feels like an afterthought in the design concept.
Now, no one wants to battle against zombie-like A.I., and as I mentioned before NBA 2K6 will challenge you. Your own teammates a bit wonky (like erroneous tres and odd turnovers), but the CPU, especially on the higher difficulty levels, will give you a run for your money. However, experienced players may find it to be a tad easy at times, especially on the default settings. For example, when you think the opposing team needs to ratchet down for a last second play, they instead just let you walk through the lane to put the game away.
Lastly, there are some excellent online options, which run smoothly and relatively lag free. Obviously Broadband is highly recommended, as you don’t want to be two steps behind the ball as you throw a crossover or pass. They even include League play and a flexible schedule option, complete with stat tracking for various user areas.
Aptly fitting their name, Visual Concepts brings us a stellar looking game. The player models, while admittedly plateauing, are still highly detailed. Players look like their real-life counterparts, and even show off their signature moves, like Iverson’s menagerie of lay-ups, and Tim Duncan’s face up bank shot. They are extremely fluid too, from trying to swat shots to slamming a dunk home; this is some pretty sexy stuff.
The arenas, like usual, are modeled down to the gum under the seats- in other words- they are painstakingly accurate. All the banners, jerseys, tunnel entrances and jumbotrons are modeled expertly. There was a day when this was such an awesome feature, but now it’s taken for granted. Speaking of which, we used to be stuck with masses of squirming pixels, a.k.a. “the crowd.” Now we have fully modeled fans, complete with foam fingers, bangers and other junk that gets dumped on spectators.
Sadly, they lost the ultra-sharp ESPN presentation style, but they still managed to present a solid interface, with ample product support and replays, but it still hurts big time. One wonders when Electronic Arts will stop gobbling up everything in sight…free market eh?
NBA 2K6 sports some decent sound yet again, complete with a whole new team in the booth. CBS Sport’s Kevin Harlan and Kenny Smith pair up to deliver some solid work. Even Craig Sager delivers from the sidelines now and again. They are pretty accurate with most calls, but like most sports games, they tend to be a step slow occasionally, as well as growing a bit annoying. I like Kenny for bringing the “street” element into play more; his Philly/NYC accent is peppered with great energy and personal anecdotes.
The court sounds are your standard collection of squeaks, bounces, grunts and so forth. Rounding this out is the musical score, which has some interesting beats to it, but nothing extraordinary.
Obviously, you have months worth of playtime here. 24/7 mode is 20+ hours of gameplay, that can be replayed with a different user created character, or on different settings. Along with this, is of course the vaunted Association, where you can spend years honing your team and skills. Add to it a robust online mode, and you have another reason why sport’s games are the best bang for your buck on the market-now, and forever.
NBA 2K6 carries on the fine tradition of 2K sports and Visual Concepts, as they go head to head with the EA juggernaut. When you add up an excellent sim experience, with flashy graphics, capable announcers, a deep franchise mode and solid controls, you arrive at the best all around basketball game for the PS2. No contest.
Keep up the good fight 2K and Visual Concepts, keep up the good fight…